1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communication systems in which communications are performed among three or more communication devices, the communication devices which constitute the communication systems, and seating-order determination devices. The present invention further relates to group-determination-table generation devices for generating a group determination table used in the seating-order determination devices and the communication methods.
2. Description of the Related Art
In conventional teleconference systems, images and sound generated at a plurality of conference rooms distant from each other are transferred among the conference rooms through a network, and the images and sound sent from the other conference rooms are reproduced at each conference room. This allows a conference to be held as if all participants sat around one table.
In these conventional teleconference systems, conference participants are allowed to talk at the same time in each conference room.
In an actual conference, in some cases, some conversation groups are made among participants according to the situation of a progress in the conference, and topics are different in the groups. Each group is made tentatively by a part of conference participants for a certain topic, and the group is flexible. More specifically, a conversation group may be made according to a progress in the conference; persons constituting a group may be changed; and one group may be further divided into a plurality of groups. The structures of groups are always being changed.
In the conventional teleconference systems, each participant sees the other participants on monitor devices. Each monitor device corresponds to one participant, and their relationship is fixed. In a conference having six participants, for example, each participant sees the other five participants on five monitor devices. Each monitor device displays an assigned participant. In other words, in a teleconference terminal used by one participant, five monitor devices MDa, MDb, MDc, MDd, and MDe display the other participants HMa, HMb, HMc, HMd, and HMe in an always fixed manner.
Assuming that each monitor device is handled as the seat of the participant corresponding to the monitor device, it can be considered that the order of seats (seating order) can be made changeable to some extent.
In other words, the five monitor devices MDa, MDb, MDc, MDd, and MDe arranged in this order do not display the participants HMa, HMb, HMc, HMd, and HMe in a fixed manner, and the relationship between the monitor devices and the participants is made changeable.
With this feature, when a group is formed among participants, the seating order can be changed according to the formed group. When the user of the terminal and the participants HMb and HMd form a group, for example, if the seating order is changed such that the monitor device MDa displays the participants HMb and the monitor device MDb displays the participants HMd, the group is made to have a convenient condition for their conversation.
The seating order is changed, for example, by the seating-order-changing operations of the user. It is not realistic that the user performs a seating-order changing operation according to a group formed or released during a conference. This means that the user needs to perform a very troublesome operation. In addition, especially during a conference, the user wants to concentrate on the conference without performing any operations. Furthermore, a terminal user is not necessarily familiar with operations.
It can be considered that a system operator is assigned to seating-order-changing operations. It is also unrealistic, however, because extra man-power is required, and an operator usually cannot correctly understand conversation groups which always change their participants.
With the above-described reasons, even in a system which allows a seating order to be changed, the feature is usually not utilized.